Graffiti
by jossaphine allibrandi
Summary: He wrote what he thought, things he's never told anyone. he didnt expect any one to read it much less respond... rated for language


**AN.**

**I had a 7 hour car trip and I wrote without stopping for 7 hours on this story.**

**I didn't change Rowlings story in anyway, except I changed time a tiny bit, I know Dumbledoor doesn't die until a lot longer after Christmas but I bent time, one of the powers that comes with writing :)**

**Enjoy.**

The tiny bathroom on the fifth floor didn't get much use. In fact it didn't really get any, and not without reason.

It was so old that the rudimentary flushing system only worked half the time (and that was on a good day) so there was always an odor that called bile to the throat and more then once students had rushed to the other, nicer, larger and above all _cleaner_ bathroom on the fifth floor looking a little green. The taps worked but the water was often brown from rust and always lukewarm. The tiles were chipped and the paint on the cubicle walls were covered in graffiti from the few student who ventured there.

So it was an incident worth noting when Draco Malfoy stormed in and slammed the door behind him. Tears of frustration and anger threatened to spill through his pale lashes as he furiously fought for control. Weeks of constant worry and terror at what would happen if he didn't succeed, terror at what would happen if he did. He'd had to run out of the room of requirement to stop himself smashing the cupboard in frustration. He'd been working on it all through the night and in the morning he'd been so close to having it finished... At least he thought he had. In reality he hadn't made any difference at all, if anything he'd been undoing the spell about what would happen if he failed made bile rise in his throat and feeling shaky he rushed into the closest cubicle.

When his stomach was completely empty he collapsed on the ground to weak to move and propped one long leg up on the wall. Gazing miserably at nothing in particular his eyes focused on a fading piece of graffiti near the bottom of the stall.

"Don't worry, be happy! : )"

He laughed mirthlessly. What a sick joke. How could he not worry? He had to kill the greatest wizard in living memory or him and his family would die. A little hard to be happy with that looming over you. What were they thinking? People who believed that the world was all butterflies and rainbows made him sick, who were they to tell him to be happy.

"Accio pen" he muttered holding up his hand and catching the pen without even looking up from the hated quote. Digging the pen in far harder then necessary he carved into the wood.

That Night the bathroom door burst open again.

Hermione Granger slammed the door behind her and collapsed on the floor staring down listlessly at her feet.

Weeks of angry but attracted tension between her and Ron had finally broken tonight when he'd been well on the way to making a bran new Weasley in the middle of the common room with lavender brown. Hermione and lavender had been really good friends. The key word there being "had". Hermione had even told her about her confusion and heartbreak when Ron had suddenly become cold and cut of. Well, she'd thought that had been heart break. That was nothing on this new hollow emptiness that filled her completely.

She sat there with tears silently trickling down her cheeks and trying not to think about anything, to will her mind to be as hollow as the rest of her.

"Hermione?" Harry called distantly.

He'd been very sweet in the old classroom, he really had, but it hadn't been enough and it wasn't from harry that she wanted it so when Ron (the person she wanted to be there) came in, she used it as an excuse to leave. She'd assumed he'd gone back to the common room and she really wasn't going to be able to hold it together in front of him again so without getting up she scooted along the ground into the nearest cubical and shut the door.

Feeling safe in her crude hiding place she returned to staring listlessly into space.

The tears blurred the wall in front of her, the off white of the wall and the faded grey of the graffiti. Then her eye was caught by an irregular black patch in the white and grey landscape and with a mammoth effort she unfocused her eyes.

Someone had written something recently, very recently. The pen work was as fresh and cut deeply into the wall. It was so far down that whoever wrote it would have to be sitting in the same position she was in on the ground with their knees tucked up to their chest.

Bending forward she read what was written and was confused until she realized it was a response to a much earlier message:

"Don't worry, be happy! : )"

Leaning forward she pulled her pen out of her pocket and in much lighter, much neater writing she added to the harsh new message, the ghost a smile on her face.

For the rest of the week the bathroom resumed its state of dignified evasion by the school.

Until Thursday morning when its peace was once again disturbed, again by Draco Malfoy.

Another sleepless night that yielded no results and once again he'd had to run to stop himself doing something he's regret. He'd gone to his usual escape but moaning Myrtle had driven him away and remembering the much avoided other fifth floor bathroom he once again shut the door behind him and slumped down with his leg propped up on the wall.

Grinning humorlessly at the memory he looked for the much hated graffiti that had caused him to respond so violently. When his eyes lit on it he was shocked to see a small neat script next to his scrawled spidery response.

Reading it he laughed for the first time in what felt like weeks but it was probably even longer since his last _real _laugh.

His facial muscles hurting ever so slightly he summoned his pen and, with more of an attempt at neatness this time, wrote his reply.

The Bathrooms respite was slightly longer this time, its solitude was undisturbed until Monday, just after third period.

Hermione stumbled in sobbing, shut the door and slumped onto the ground leaning against it, still crying.

Shed avoided Ron like the plague all week, talking instead to harry and Parvati and her few friends in the library. Today in transfiguration she'd almost felt things healing, going back to normal, at least close. Her and harry were laughing at Ron's splendid handlebar mustache and shed almost forgotten they weren't speaking until he'd gone cold and stopped laughing and at the started doing a cruel imitation of hermione begging to answer the question and of course lavender and the rest of them started to laugh...

Howling hermione ran to the nearest cubicle and grabbed handfuls of toilet paper to stem the flow running down her face. Collapsing on the ground she cried until she didn't have anymore tears and then she just sat there. Thinking about the last time she was here crying she unfolded her legs and bent forward looking for the boyish scrawl that made her smile last time. She sucked in a breathe in surprise to see that there was more writing. Biting her lip unconsciously she read the message with her brows furrowed and once agin it made her smile when she felt like nothing else would. Pulling her pen out of her messy bun leant forward and wrote.

As soon as madam Pomfrey left him lone for more then a second Draco snuck out of the hospital wing deeply shaken and stumbled to the only place he felt safe any more, the tiny, smelly, filthy bathroom on the fifth floor.

He'd made the mistake of going back to the large one, only to have blasted potter walk in.

Without thinking he's tried to kill the boy who lived but the bastard had hit with a curse he didn't know and he'd ended up in the hospital wing, his pride and body shaken and weak.

Without daring to hope he gingerly sat himself down in his usual spot and leant forward, hoping against hope to see the looping feminine script and to his surprise was not disappointed. reading the message he laughed out loud and rested his head against the wall.

He smiled savoring the feeling of lightness that replaced the constant heavy dread.

Pulling the pen he brought specifically from his pocket he wrote his reply.

After considerable hesitation he reached out slowly and added a tentative question at the end:

"Who are you?"

Less then a day later hermione ducked in on the pretext of finding her pen.

She wasn't even sure that the pen was in there but when the thought had come to her she'd seized the excuse to come back and while she was there, to check the bottom of the wall where the writing that she couldn't stop thinking about.

Setting herself down with her knees once again tucked up she leaned forward and smiled before she even read what was written, just happy the he had replied.

Her smile stayed inlace when she read the message but slipped a little when she read the last line. "who am I?" she whispered, shocked. She didn't know what to reply, telling him who she was was out of the question.

Her brow furrowed in concentration she wrote her reply. After a moments hesitation while she thought about how Ron ignored her, every one else's gaze slid over her and her constant feeling of emptiness, she added on the end:

"I'm no one.

Who are you?"

Draco was supposed to be working in the room of requirement, Crabbe thought he was, but he's snuck out and was again checking to see if she'd replied. He'd already checked twice but he wasn't put of, he'd just keep checking.

Once again in his favorite spot with his leg propped up he grinned to himself as he saw her looping cursive again added, to the side this time, they were running out of space. With bated breathe he read it and his eyes skimmed ahead to the end.

"Who's no one?" he whispered to the air. He reread the message several times before penning his response and after some deliberation, thinking about his impossible task and the consequences that awaited him he wrote

"Im dead"

It was Christmas night, a day later, when hermione once again flung herself on the ground sobbing and reaching for the paper to wipe her face read his message through her tears.

She'd just run all the way from Slughorn office in the dungeons. After a night of being groped by mk'laggen to try to get Ron's attention and having him coldly ignore her she felt like nothing, her insides left their feeling of hollowness and became heaving, dragging her down.

Her tears stopped as she read the message, and though she didn't smile, her mind lifted from lead to feathers.

"Dead? Figuratively speaking? Or is there an actual threat to the life of one of the students?" she asked the unresponsive bathroom.

Forgetting about Ron for the first time in what felt like years she concentrated on her worried reply, her neat writing and grammar going out the window.

Hermione had only just rounded the corner when Draco stormed in from the other direction and hurled himself to the ground, to angry to read her reply yet.

He had been this close, this close! When that greasy squib had caught him and dragged him into the hideous party. Then the son of a bitch Snape had dragged him out and offered to "help" him. What a load of shit. He just wanted the credit of Draco's success and the glory of success that Draco would still have to pay the price for.

Taking a deep breathe Draco forcefully pulled his thoughts away from Snape, the dark lord and the "price" he'd have to pay.

Reading her response his brow furrowed, his face was briefly touched by the barest smile, but only briefly. Her writing was sloped and passionate, her words unthought out and bare, her thoughts were uncensored.

It shook him.

Forcing himself to breath he carved out his reply, his anger gone.

Hermione never got to read his reply.

The next night harry came and told her and Ron that he was leaving with Dumbledoor and to guard the castle. The tentative peace between them since he broke up with lavender strengthened.

Draco fixed the cupboard and the months of tension broke, knowing that tonight, he would either succeed or die cut through his dread and fear.

Neither gave a thought to the small, little used bathroom on the fifth floor.

Until nearly three years later.

Neither had returned to Hogwarts until the last big fight when Voldemort was vanquished an after that they both avoided it, to many best forgotten memories.

It took what was dubbed to be the celebration of the century to draw them both went because as one of the surviving heroes she would be a star of the night and Draco went because it would raise to many questions if he didn't.

The night started solemnly enough, remembering those who had sacrificed their lives for others freedom but as more and more alcohol was consumed people became increasingly rowdy until the calming background music was replaced by loud songs and people began to dance.

Hermione sat uncomfortably as all around her, her drunk friends danced and laughed. She hadn't consumed a drop of alcohol and thought it barbaric to use the death of so many people as an excuse to get drunk.

The final straw for her was when the music changed yet again and a song she remembered from her father playing when she was a child came on, bob Marly's "three little birds".

Disgusted she stood up toppling her chair back and stormed out saying she had to go the bathroom.

Draco sat stonily in the corner with the other former slytherins who no one really wanted to be there.

Refraining from joining in the festivities and surveying them with and aura of distaste.

When yet another unknown muggle song came on he sighed.

Then he started to hear the lyrics "saying don't worry, 'bout a thing, because every little thing, is gonna be all right".

Standing up in disgust he shouted to Zambini he was going the bathroom and stormed out.

Hermione actually went to the bathroom at first, but every single one on the ground floor was full. It really sank in how many people had come and she headed for the stairs but every bathroom on the second floor was full as well. Exasperated by now she was about to give up when she remembered the tiny bathroom on the fifth floor that was always empty.

Draco walked listlessly around the corridors trying to cheer himself up.

He cast his mind back and tried to remember his happiest memory from Hogwarts. he was downhearted but not entirely surprised when he couldn't remember a single happy day.

Walking passed another bathroom he had a flash across his mind of faded graffiti and a neat looping cursive that always made him smile had him climbing the closet stairs to the fifth floor.

Hermione pushed open the door and walked across to her old spot and sat down, a smile on her face as she tucked her knees up and read what had been written to her years ago.

The penmanship was a little faded but distinctive as ever and she could still read it.

She smiled as she read back through their dialogue.

Draco slowly pushed open the door and stepped through, gently shutting it behind him.

Walking over to his cubicle he was shocked to see someone already sitting there. Sitting there with her knees tucked up under her chin and her arms wrapped around them was none other then the mud blood, hermione granger.

They stared at each other in silence for a few minutes until hermione unfolded herself enough to scoot over before resuming her old position. Gingerly he lowered his frame down next to her and propped his leg up without thinking. Still in silence they sat and looked at what they wrote to each other two years ago.

Finally he turned his head to look at her and asked "are you nobody?".

She nodded. "are you dead?"

He snorted at his previous self. He turned his head to her again. "you aren't nobody any more, your hermione granger, the war hero"

The ghost of a smile crossed her face and she turned to him. "well your definitely not dead" they both smiled this time, a little sadly but still a smile.

**AN.**

**So what did you think?**

**realistic? could it have happened? or a complete waste of time and impossible? Theres a review box right there so use the damn thing :)**

**Anyway, I'm considering writing another story thats just what they actually wrote on the wall, but I'm not sure. Feel free to write it if you want but all i ask is that you let me know so i can read it :)**

xxx


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